President Festus Mogae: the Regent Who Became King
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A Special Issue on Botswana Notes and Records’ Golden Jubilee Volume in Honour of Sir Ketumile Masire President Festus Mogae: The Regent Who Became King Botsalo Ntuane∗ The watershed moment came on 4 November 1995. By the time delegates made their way back home, it was all over. In an extraordinary year, the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) had met twice in con- gress. Four months earlier, in July, the faithful had descended on the dormitory village of Mogoditshane for another bout of factional bloodletting. The congress came two years after Kanye, at which the polarity in the ruling party had reached crisis level. This particular congress came in the wake of the gravest crisis the party had ever faced. In 1991, in response to a litany of complaints about the performance of land boards, Peter Mmusi had initiated an investigation into the matter. Little knowing that the outcome would ensnare him, Mmusi, in addition, convinced President Ketumile Masire to set up a commission of inquiry to investigate allega- tions of impropriety regarding land allocation in Mogoditshane and other peri-urban villages. The findings that came out left a trail of political destruction and ruin in their wake. Chaired by a founding party stalwart, Englishman Kgabo, the commission found that though Mmu- si and Daniel Kwelagobe had not stolen any land or illegally acquired any land in Mogoditshane, Mmusi had committed an error of moral and political judgement in upholding Kwelagobe’s appeal for a certain piece of land in Nkoyaphiri. The two were not ordinary men. Mmusi was Vice President of the country and also Minister for Local Government and Lands. Kwelagobe was party Secretary General and Minister of Agriculture. The outcome of the Kgabo Commission set in motion a chain of events which would propel Festus Mogae to power. When the report was tabled in Parliament, legislators from both the opposition and the ruling party benches went for the jugular. They demanded swift action against what they termed corrupt activities and abuse of office against the two men. Likewise, university students and trade unions took to the streets echoing the demand for action. At the beginning of March, and with the controversy turning into an inferno, Masire travelled to Japan on a working visit. He returned home on 5 March and was received at the airport by Vice President Mmusi. The President was under pressure to act. However, in a pre-emptive move, Kwelagobe, in dramatic fashion and at the end of the budget presentation for his ministry, announced his resignation on the floor of Parliament. The situation was of terrible personal anguish to Masire given his closeness to the two men. Kwel- agobe had served as deputy when Masire was still both party Secretary General and Vice President under Seretse Khama. As for Mmusi, they were close associates from long back. At Masire’s wedding to Gladys Olebile Molefi, Mmusi was in the groom’s party. On assuming the presidency in 1980, he had appointed Lenyeletse Seretse his deputy. On the latter’s demise three years later, Mmusi got the nod. A year later, in the 1984 elections, the Vice President contested the Gaborone South constituency against Dr Kenneth Koma, scrapping through by a small margin. But subsequent to the election, a sealed ballot box was dis- covered, which necessitated a rerun won by the BNF leader. Saddled with a Vice President who had no constituency, it was resolved that a junior minister in the government, Gaotlhaetse Matlhabaphiri, step aside as specially elected Member of Parliament to create an opening for Mmusi. In exchange, Matlha- baphiri was given a diplomatic assignment abroad. Embroiled in another scandal, Mmusi was left with little choice and submitted his resignation. Two of the most prominent members of government had fallen on their swords. Masire was seized with the task of reconstituting his government. Of immediate priority was to fill the vacancy created by Mmusi. Thus, four days after his arrival from Japan, the nation was informed on 9 March 1992 of the elevation of Festus ∗ Botsalo Ntuane, former Secretary General for the Botswana Democratic Party, Gaborone: Email: [email protected] 333 Botswana Notes and Records, Volume 50, 2018 Mogae to the position of Vice President. A relative unknown to the party faithful, he was something of an outsider. A career technocrat of many years, Mogae had entered politics in spectacular and controversial fashion. In the 1980s, the coun- try was undergoing rapid developments fuelled by diamond revenues. To drive the development agenda and respond to the aspirations of a nation undergoing rapid changes, Masire felt he needed to surround himself with the best talent on offer. Those possessed of such talent tended to be in the civil service. In a move that sparked condemnation from the opposition, the President borrowed a leaf from his predecessor’s book. In 1974, Seretse Khama had plucked Archie Mogwe and Gaositwe Chiepe from the civil service and redeployed them in active politics as cabinet ministers. The modus operandi was for the party to go to elections, and on the eve of formation of a new government, for those identified to retire overnight from the civil service, and be named the following day as members of the cabinet. For them to qualify, they entered through the constitutional window of specially elected Members of parliament. Masire had little time for the complaints of those who found fault with the practice. To him, Bo- tswana was a developing country, and its best brains could be deployed anywhere in national service for as long as the rules were followed. And if the talented few were willing to join his party, so much the better. Therefore, consistent with this ethos, 1989 saw the arrival of founding commander of the Botswana De- fence Force (BDF), Lt Gen. Mompati Merafhe, who was deployed to the Office of the President. Former Permanent Secretary to the President, Festus Mogae, was appointed the new Minister for Finance and Development Planning –taking over from Mmusi. An examination of the relationship between the older man and his protégé would reveal that Mo- gae had only ever worked in departments where Sir Ketumile was the political head. Upon completion of his studies, Mogae was posted to the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, first as a planning officer, progressing to become Director of Economic Affairs. In 1975, he rose to Permanent Secretary in the same ministry, before proceeding to Washington DC the following year to serve as executive director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for Anglophone Africa. On his return four years later, Mogae was appointed Governor of the Bank of Botswana for a short stint before reuniting with Masire in 1982 as his Permanent Secretary. Impeccable authority has it that when Mmusi met Masire to convey his resignation note, he pro- posed Kedikilwe in his stead. On the other hand, there were those who backed Merafhe for the position. Both men lost out. Although his appointment came as a major shock to pundits who had hardly considered him a contender, the choice of Mogae must be seen in the context of his close bond with Masire. The for- mer President concedes that both Kedikilwe and Merafhe had the requisite attributes to replace Mmusi. Their fatal undoing was that they were aligned to the factions tearing the party asunder. Now enjoying his retirement years, the former President admits that working with Mogae may have given him an opportu- nity to know more about him than, perhaps, his colleagues. But Masire does not believe that that could have been the sole overriding factor. Pointing out that he does not have close, personal friends, he does not subscribe to the theory because personal affinity alone was not enough to influence his decision. Any consideration based on personal friendship would, in his words, ‘be criminal’. More than anything, he thinks he opted for Mogae because the man did not seem to belong to either of the two factions. Again in Sir Ketumile’s own words, he also ‘respected Mogae’s intelligence, humility, unassuming manner and also because Festus didn’t come across as a person with any particular wish to be president’. With Mogae installed as VP, the feuding in the party continued unabated. Suspension from their party positions meant Mmusi and Kwelagobe were now cast out in the wilderness. Not only were they out of government, they had also suffered the humiliation of being demoted to backbenchers. Determined to rehabilitate themselves, the duo toured the country addressing party members sympathetic to their cause. As far as they were concerned, the Kgabo Commission had been orchestrated by a group of cabinet mem- 334 A Special Issue on Botswana Notes and Records’ Golden Jubilee Volume in Honour of Sir Ketumile Masire bers who resented the hold the two men had on the party. They and their supporters were adamant that the entire thing was an elaborate plot to remove them to make way for a group alleged to be led by Mompati Merafhe, later to be known as the Big Five, and comprising notably David Magang, Bahiti Temane, Roy Blackbeard and Chapson Butale. In appealing to their supporters, Mmusi and Kwelagobe, labelled the Big Two, singled out the Big Five as conspirators behind the plot. To them, Merafhe had used his influence as Minister for Presidential Affairs and Public Administration to pack the enquiry with fellow conspirators. Asked some years later why his mentor, Englishman Kgabo, would conspire against him, Kwelagobe said the old man did not have any control over the proceedings of the commission. His role was of figurehead.